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Motorola may buy Palm to take on Apple

updated 03:35 pm EDT, Wed March 21, 2007

by MacNN Staff

Motorola May Buy Palm

Motorola is the prime candidate for buying Palm, an anonymous investor in the Treo manufacturer said on Wednesday. The source claimed that Motorola was now leading the pack of four companies that had been previously been competing to buy Palm, and confirmed that the former could be ready to announce a $2 billion deal as soon as Thursday.

Although Nokia had reportedly been leading the bids in recent days, the shareholder said, both Motorola and Palm have realized that they both stand to gain from a merger by fending off major competitors, singling out Apple as Palm's greatest fear.

"Apple is about to walk away with the OS (operating system) market for handheld computers," the contact noted. "Microsoft has been successful because it's always owned the OS. In some ways, the iPhone from Apple is a trojan horse, a handheld computer running the Mac OS that's poised to take over the world."

By finalizing their union, Motorola and Palm would form the largest single Windows Mobile phone producer in the world and would offer a stronger alternative to smartphones based on other operating systems, especially Apple's iPhone and Nokia's E- and N- series phones based on Symbian.

The shareholder cautioned that Morgan Stanley, the bank negotiating the deal, had not finalized a deal and that the situation could change even in the day before the announcement. However, it was made clear that Motorola had every reason to be aggressive in its bid as it would quickly profit from taking over Palm's affairs.

"They could pay up to $25 a share and the deal would still be accretive," the investor said. "Accretive immediately." [viaCNBC]

Apple once wanted to buy Palm. It should do it now. Migrate all the Palm devices (Treo phones, PDAs) to the mini-MacOS X used by the iPhone and repurpose all Palm's intelectual propery and patents as necessary.

Instead of Motorola + Palm [i]and[/i] Microsoft's Windows Mobile competing against Apple, the number of competitors could be cut down in one fell swoop.

Was home for the holidays. 3 relatives w/ 3 Razrs. None could figure out the others' Razr interface, and each said they still had no clue how half of the features worked on their own phone. 2 out of 3 were computer-literate. Not a great score for Moto.

I'll be trading my Treo for a rev B iPhone, Palm isn't the sexiest of OSes.

Let Motorola buy Palm and then have that albatross around their neck. In no way shape or form should Apple consider buying Palm. Palm and Motorola would be good partners as they both tend to s**** up what would otherwise be good products...

The business prospects of Motorola, the 80-year-old technology company, suddenly look as thin as the Razr, its iconic mobile phone.

Today, the company significantly revised its earnings estimates for the first three months of the year, dropping its revenue projections by $1 billion for the quarter. The company also announced a management shake-up and an expanded stock-buyback program."

When the iPhone has useful medical apps then folks like me will look that way. Right now, my Palm TX is a powerhouse of information for the wards. We're a huge chunk of Palm's user base and we won't be happy if Motorola comes in and botches it up.

Almost like the Newton, over 10 years ago, so has Palm built a solid and strong following in 'vertical' markets, specifically, health care. Every single doctor friend I know swears by it (anyone heard of Epocrates app?). Some 7 years ago, Palm was the gadget of choice for Christmas (this was before iPod, of course). There are about 200,000 apps out there for the platform. It would require a colossal mismanagement of the platform to drive this into the ground. On the other hand, if anyone could do exactly that it is Palm Inc (or Motorola, for that matter).

Ultimately, what 'CF' said may be an excellent clue: unlike Palm, Apple is now in a position to capitalise on the popularity of iPhone. Allowing third party development (with a testing and certifying process for QA) would quickly mean Epocrates could develop iPhone version and all these doctors would have an easy migration path.

Palm has already self-destructed, the second victim of Be Incorporated and their permanently-under-construction C++ kernel (the first being Be itself). Palm OS was the most important asset they had, and they've given that away and systematically undermined it with vaporware and bizarre products.

Thank God Apple didn't go with BeOS.

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